The first comprehensive theory of strategic bombing was the work of Air Marshal Giulio Douhet

of the Italian Air Force. His work, Command of the Air, was an attempt to codify his thinking on
the future of war in the emerging age of airpower. His prescription, though frequently taken as
universal, was structured for the unique geostrategic location of Italy.Douhet based his theory on
his observations of World War I (WWI). In that war, airpower had explored strategic bombing
while ground forces spent much of the conflict stagnated in bloody trench warfare. With the
ability to fly over static trenches, Douhet no longer saw "any need to break through the enemy's
lines to reach an objective. The lines no longer protect what is behind them. " Douhet also saw
the ability of the aircraft to instill panic into the hearts of both civilians and soldiers. He viewed
the ability to generate panic among the population as one of the principal strengths of airpower.
While charging that airpower had been misused in WWI as merely a means to annoy the
enemy,he argued that the moral element was the key to victory in the future. He stated that the
most effective means of waging war was to attack the weakest element of enemy resistance.That
element was the moral resolve of the population--a target that had been largely secure from the
horrors of war unless in the direct path of advancing armies. However, "any distinction between
belligerents and nonbelligerent is no longer admissible today. "Future wars would target "vital
centers" which Douhet defined as population and industrial centers.Seeing the prime target as the
moral resolve of the enemy, allowing no distinction between civil and military targets, and
finding no effective barrier between the aircraft and its target, Douhet formulated his theory of
airpower. From Douhet's work emerged a set of tenets to strategic bombing doctrine. Those
tenets included the propositions that:

1) Airpower is offensive in nature.

2) The bomber is the basic weapon of airpower and all resources should be directed towards
bomber aviation.

3) The first goal of strategic bombardment is to gain command of the air. Until achieving that
goal, one's own population will have to accept enemy bombardment.

4) The moral resolve of a nation is the weak link in its war effort.

5) Moral resolve is subject to direct attack through strategic aerial bombardment of vital centers.
6) Once a nation has command of the air, it should attack the material and moral resources of the
enemy to bring about the collapse of the enemy society--although selection of targets will be the
hardest part of using airpower. Target selection will be highly situational.

7) The "Battleplane," or self-escorting, multi-role aircraft is the ideal form for airpower.

8) Airpower should be massed and aerial attack should be relentless. Surprise, or pre-emption, is
extremely valuable.

9) Command of the air is necessary and sufficient for victory. Though ground and naval forces
have a role, air forces will be the most important to early victory--and thereby, they are decisive.

10) Sufficient bombers will always get through. Though not explicitly stated, Douhet's scenario
in "The War of 19 " demonstrates this belief. Despite large attrition en route, the bombers still
manage to reach and strike their targets.

While he never doubted the decisiveness of airpower, Douhet still saw some shortcomings in his
theory. In his work he had advocated the combined use of chemical, incendiary, and high
explosive (HE) bombs to attack population centers.However, he saw that aircraft could not
currently carry the necessary bombloads, and the ordnance was not powerful enough. Douhet
first pursued the explosives problem with his friend the aircraft designer, Giovanni Caproni.
Caproni had written to Douhet as early as 1918 to explain the technical difficulties in meeting
Douhet's theoretical requirements. Douhet further pursued the issue in the 1926 edition of
Command of the Air when he argued for greater research to improve the "efficacy of destructive
materials. "To address the aircraft problem, he argued for allmetal aircraft to improve durability
and payload. Yet despite the problems he saw, the basic tenets of his theory remained
unchanged. These tenets defined the predominant strategic bombing theory through the pre-
nuclear era. In fact, World War II (WWII), which will be discussed in more detail in Chapter
Three, provided a theoretical proving ground for the major air powers of the world. However,
with the detonation of the atomic bombs over Japan, strategic bombing entered a new age. Dr.
Bernard Brodie was one of the first to re-examine existing theory in light of the new age, and
publish his findings. In 1957, he drafted his first text, "The Heritage of Douhet," under the
auspices of the RAND Corporation. It served as the basis for his larger work, Strategy in the
Missile ~, published in the early 1960s. The text serves as a primer for strategic bombing theory
in the post-nuclear age. With Douhet as his starting point, Brodie used his volume to recapitulate
early theory and then modify it to the new technical age. His examination identified key
shortcomings to Douhet's work. Though he stated that, "Douhet was proven wrong on almost
every salient point he made,"Brodie found that emerging technologies actually buttressed the
Italian's weaknesses. Brodie criticized Douhet regarding his exaggeration of bomb damage, his
assertions on bomber penetrability, his neglect for target selection guidance, and his mistake in
advertising the ability to force a change in the opponents government through airpower.
However, the nuclear age presented a new environment in which to reassess Douhet's ideas.
Nuclear weapons now provided the level of destruction for which Douhet had searched. For in
the past, destruction was hampered by both the limited power of the bombs and the accuracy of
delivery. The nuclear bomb, while enjoying better accuracy than in the past, no longer needed it.
It could easily destroy the targets that escaped early bombers. Because of this quantum increase
in the destructive power of a single bomber; Brodie eventually argued that technology had
overcome Douhet's underestimation of the power of the defense. While fewer bombers would get
through because of technologies, such as radar, which Douhet had not foreseen, those that
penetrated would have such awesome power that they were still a credible force. But that force
must be properly targeted. Brodie was far more explicit on targeting than Douhet had been. One
of Brodie's chief complaints about Douhet was the dearth of targeting direction in the early
theory. Brodie did, however, agree with Douhet that the strategic war-fighting assets must be the
first priority for any strategic attack. However, he found the distinction in priority to be merely
academic. For the destruction caused by the atomic warhead not only cured the problems of
firepower and accuracy, but also created such collateral damage that there was considerable
overlap of targets. Whether to strike counterforce or countervalue was a moot point. A
counterforce strike would also constitute a de facto countervalue strike in its wake. Any strike
against military targets would effect untold damage to civilian targets. Any attack on industry
would destroy surrounding cities. "'Overkilling' will be cheap and therefore, according to the
military considerations normally brought to bear, no longer to be shunned. The ability to extract
such simultaneous military and societal damage raised the question of the ultimate goal of the
bombing campaign. Brodie, though faulting Douhet in many regards, agreed on the basic points
of strategic bombing- -it would be decisive and the ultimate target would be the civilian support
for the war effort. By decisive, Douhet had meant that airpower would compel a nation to sue for
peace before any other arm of the military could achieve that goal. Brodie defined decisive in a
more strict sense. "When we say that strategic bombing will be decisive, we mean that if it
occurs on the grand scale that existing forces make possible, other kinds of military operations
are likely to prove both unfeasible and superfluous." The early air war would break down the
entire military structure of the enemy. Whereas Douhet predicted a coup d'etat in the wake of
bombing, Brodie foresaw complete anarchy in the total ruin left following nuclear attacks.While
questioning the wisdom of direct attacks against civilians, he maintained that bombing would
have a major impact on the war effort through the erosion of moral support.28 Therefore, starting
with Douhet's theory of strategic bombing, Brodie modified it to include the technical evolutions
and experience base to date. From that emerged a new set of tenets.

1) Airpower is offensive in nature. The offense is the only valid employment of airpower.

2) The bomber will get through. Though defenses may extract a heavy penalty for penetration,
they cannot prevent it. The cost to the attacker is justified given the destructive power of a single
bomber.

3) The first priority of attack is the opposing strategic air assets.

4) The nuclear warhead will be the predominant weapon for strategic bombing campaigns in the
future.

5) When strategic bombing is employed, it will be decisive.

6) Strategic bombing will break the will of the people to resist through the sheer level of
destruction. The moral and political cohesion of the nation will be natural collateral casualties of
the counterforce and industrial targeting.

7) Weapons must be sufficiently powerful and accurate to destroy the machinery of industry,
beyond rapid repair. Nuclear weapons supply this need.

Thus the tenets of strategic bombardment did evolve with time, but within the basic construct
first penned by Air Marshal Douhet. Despite the shortcomings he found in Douhet's work,
Brodie's subsequent theory still retained the essence of the earlier's ideas. Together, their theories
taught of the power of the aerial offense as practiced through strategic bombing. That theory
evolved into the Post- WWII doctrine of the American air arm.